Wow, 43% of respondents think cruise ships are a blight as opposed to providing badly needed revenue, jobs, taxes, etc. to our city? No wonder we're in such deep financial doodoo here. Maybe we just all sing Kumbaya and wait for manna to rain down.....

I'm curious about the real economic impact of tourism in Santa Barbara. I'm aware that the fast-food industry, including McDonalds, is very similar to Walmart in increasing reliance on social service programs in communities. I haven't looked at any stats, but the hospitality industry employs many people at below living wages. Also, tourism is a source of income and jobs as well as a consumer of city resources in its impact on infrastructure and services provided by city employees.

S.B. arrainging chairs on its sinking cruise ship. "Much needed revenue",. hmmm.Big picture: It's place that's all about tourism and not about making itself affordable for locals which is why so many of us have left. Yes, cruise ships...how symbolic of a place where working-class people have no chance of buying homes and are lucky if they can even pay the rent, but it's "Paradise".

Look to your local gov for encouraging tourism and associated low-paying jobs and driving middle class jobs out of SB - been happening the whole 17 years I've lived here. Keep voting for these folks and it will keep happening. In the meantime, SB needs the revenue because it is indeed a sinking ship. How many Council members over the past 17 years have you heard talk, much less act, on job creation.

That's just gross. I seem to recall some issue about that in the Channel some years ago, but don't recall if was actually a deed or just an accusation. i like the monitor idea - maybe some kind of sensors on buoys.

Best not to ask voters how to solve the city's huge $400 million unfunded liability problems. They like to spend, but they refuse to raise revenues. Is this how they live their own lives - put it all on the credit card and then close the curtains and pray.

Tourism will help bring in some dollars, but stoping the aggressive deficit-inducing promises to city employees still is the first line of defense to more city red ink.

So start diverting more city revenues in to infrastructure maintenance and repair as one way to start digging ourselves out of this hole past progressive city councils got us into, when there was never a feel-good program they were not willing to put on the public's credit card and never a bill they chose to ignore.

Now that the city infrastructure is falling apart and those promises to city employees regarding their pensions are now all falling due, the city' coffers are too low and the chance for increasing city tax revenues is zero to nil, so we are in the unfortunate situation there is not enough money to cover those past due bills.

At some point city nay-sayers have to stop screaming at revenue producers like like cruise ships, and at cuts needed to balance the rest of the budgets.

And the city yea-sayers have to be told to stop spending. Get used to this new reality. You ran out of spending other people's money .This has not yet sunk it but at least you were told now, if you fail to plan accordingly for this new future reality.

What financial benefit do the ships bring? The passengers have already paid for their food on the ship. They aren't staying in a hotel. They don't need to come to Santa Barbara to shop at Banana Republic, Forever 21, or Macy's. What do they spend money on?

I get so tired of seeing the same dishonest narrative about the unfunded liabilities. Those spouting such narratives never, ever note that Calpers lost 1/3 (!) of its value during the financial meltdown. Nor do they note the fact that for years, it was common knowledge that public workers traded lower salaries for the security of pensions. From an article last year: "In the boom of the late 1990s, investment returns were high and pension programs were well-funded all over the state, so bargaining units were able to negotiate increasing the cap for payouts and more generous formulas. All enhancements to city benefits were negotiated by the City Council, often in lieu of salary raises, according to Kristy Schmidt, the city’s employee relations manager." Those are the two big factors behind the public pension problem. Unfortunately, there are those who are inclined to ignore the facts and repeat lies about "reckless" city councils and "greedy" public employees. Their rejection of the facts, however, doesn't change the facts.

Yep, the "unfunded liabilities" (thanks to the 2001-2008 market meltdown), is posted on just about every thread on the Independent and Edhat. I am too tired of it - it is like a mindless hammer going on and on.

There is no calm analysis of why it got that way - because if there were, it would end the conversation. The supposed "solution" is to vote in people who are on the side that caused the mess.

Hey tabatha, people voted for George Bush in 2000 because he campaigned for small government and a humble foreign policy.

Bush doubled the size of government and had a horrendous foreign policy thanks mostly to his VP and cabinet.

They voted for him in 2004 because his cabinet hijacked the country's emotions on 9/11 when they allowed and helped ensure the attack would happen and tricked everybody into thinking that Al Qaeda was going to attack us here at home if we didn't re-elect him (I never voted for him, I voted for Nader in '00 and '04). The establishment had no intentions of allowing anybody but Bush to win in '04, Kerry was just acting and knew he wasn't going to win and had no intention of winning.. The electronic voting machines would ensure that no matter what happened. He and Bush were both Skull and Bones.

So Bush did exactly the opposite of what he originally campaigned on - What you are arguing is a straw-man argument, Bush did not employ a conservative political philosophy to the actions he and his administration took in office.

Actually, Al Gore won the popular vote, and he actually won Florida - per the investigation of independent newspapers. Unfortunately, the results came out around the time of 9/11.

Bush campaigned on privatizing SS, and most of his supporters do not want that, and because they did not, it never happened.

Historically - go look at the stats - Democrats have been better for the economy, and Republicans worse. The numbers do not lie.

And I also take issue with this notion of "bigger" and "smaller" government. You can have govt doing lots of necessary things without being "big" government. I would like to return to the days of Clinton, the best economy this country has had for a long time. 23 million jobs created, and on track for a surplus - all blown by GWB. With the effects being felt for a long long time, and taking a long time to heal because of the obstructionism from his side of the aisle.

"I get so tired of seeing the same dishonest narrative about the unfunded liabilities. Those spouting such narratives never, ever note that Calpers lost 1/3 (!) of its value during the financial meltdown.so bargaining units were able to negotiate increasing the cap for payouts and more generous formulas."

Tucky, your position is that since earnings decreased by 1/3, bargaining units wanted to pay out more?

How big a salary increase do you think Calpers bargaining unit members are entitled to based on this?

Keep in mind, also, that the financial meltdown affected only public employee union members.

Tabatha: Libertarians are not Republicans, we're a different breed of animal.

Would the many people on whom Clinton dropped bombs be impressed by the figures you cite? This is NOT a personal attack on you, but please reflect on this. I would also argue that California--a very "blue" state, is economically inhospitable to the working-class it claims--and perhaps believes--it represents.

By no means am I giving Bush a free pass, and I think Loonpt, others, and yourself well-articulate his many faults so my doing so would merely be redundant.

"Hey tabatha, people voted for George Bush in 2000 because he campaigned for small government and a humble foreign policy. " -- OOPS, loon, the folks who voted for Bush II (aka as Dick Cheney) were ignoramuses if they believed the Twig's 'small government' BS, and he never seriously espoused a 'humble foreign policy'! It was always American exceptionalism and triumphalism, expression of US imperial interests abroad, and attack when needed... surrounded by neo-cons and advised by Cheney, c'mon, that's loony, dude.

DrDan: I DO think people voted for Bush because they believed his small-government line.

The simple fact is that when push comes to shove, 90% of the American electorate will vote for "the lesser of two evils" which translated means they will vote for evil as long as it isn't the evil of the enemy political party.

I'll put it another way, the mindset of the average Democrat is "it's true so-and-so supports imperialism and the Patriot Act and surveillance at home but at least they are progressive" whilst the Republicans will say something such as "Yes, he/she is a liar and has expanded the size of government but they defend Christian values and are pro-free enterprise".

Meanwhile the 90% ridicule the other 10% of us but at least we don't feel we've prostituted ourselves after we leave the ballot box.

And tabatha, it sounds like you want to go back to the days of having a relatively conservative President who happens to have a (D) in front of their name along with a Republican congress, because that is what we had under Clinton. But I'm really not going to defend any of their actions either, because the fact that the economy was good had little to do with who was in office and more to do with the 'business cycle'. This is when the Federal Reserve pumps credit into the economy causing a boom, followed by the malinvestment that later needs to be liquidated during the bust phase. So Clinton was sort of like the "roaring 20's". Then we had the internet bubble bust in '01 and Greenspan and Bush then pumped up the housing bubble to help pad the landing. This led to the housing bubble crash in '07/'08.

There is an underlying problem with the entire political process due to our banking system, The Federal Reserve. The thing is, people keep rooting for the puppet on the left or the puppet on the right, but you have to realize that George Bush, Dick Cheney and the neocons didn't hijack our country like me and many other people on the left thought when he was in office. Obama and the globalists (Soros, etc.) did not hijack the country like a lot of people on the right think. These groups were strategically given power from a higher source, the global banking cartel and the Bilderberg Group. They are the ones who decide which faction gets to take the reigns and they are told what to do and how to operate by the elite. Cheney and his PNAC minions were chosen to hijack Bush' Presidency (because let's face it, Bush wasn't that smart), and they were chosen because they had a plan in place for after the 9/11 attacks to significantly expand our foreign policy into the middle east.

I also wouldn't be surprised to find out that both Gore and Kerry won not only the popular election but also would have won the electorate had the electronic voting machines not been manipulated. But it doesn't matter who the people want to win, it matters who the Bilderberg Group wants to win.

Remember when Obama disappeared with Hillary Clinton one night right after the primaries? Remember they were able to ditch the media some how and nobody knew where they went? It was the oddest thing..

Did you know that THE one and only annual Bilderberg meeting was in town that night? Did you know the meeting occurs once a year for a few days and is located either in the US or Europe? Did you know Hillary had attended the year before? Do you want to start calculating the odds that all of these things came together, or do you want to admit that Hillary took Obama to the Bilderberg meeting that night?

ahh, conspiracies schmonspiracies, they're everywhere and all over and certainly not open to challenge. Forget Bush's words, see the aggressive Alpha-male types he surrounded himself with...a favorite was Natan Sharansky, Israeli super-hardliner! No, loon, I won't listen to the Bush schmaltz and talky-talk, he was very aggressive after 911 and led us into stupid and terrible wars, AND enlarged the federal government mightily. good points BC, when you write "the mindset of the average Democrat is "it's true so-and-so supports imperialism and the Patriot Act and surveillance at home but at least they are progressive" -- but I hope and think that may be changing. I have slammed Obama, remember "Obushama"?, enough times and I criticize him heavily here for letting Bush's NSA insanity continue and expand during his watch. The truth is, we've lost any precision in the term "progressive" today.